


Tryin' to Even the Score

by convolutedConcussion



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Author Is Constantly Screaming At Screen "Please Just Talk Already", Episode Tag: s02e09, F/M, Like Mild Angst, Porn With Plot, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 21:56:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18725758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/convolutedConcussion/pseuds/convolutedConcussion
Summary: “So, what the fuck was that?” he demands, voice steely and cold.To her credit, she only pauses for a moment before, “The sex part, the part where I said I'm out, or the part where I asked you to leave?”“Yeah.”





	Tryin' to Even the Score

As soon as she gets into her bathroom, Beth turns on the shower, but she doesn't get in.  Instead, she drops into the toilet lid and wraps her arms around her middle, breaths ragged and quick--she hadn't really looked at his face, couldn't bring herself to do it as the carefully-chosen words passed over her lips as if spoken by someone else.  Someone who did this sort of thing, who did her best to wound with words and actions. What she'd seen, though--she'd expected anger, anger would have set her at ease somehow. His anger is familiar. The glimpse she'd gotten looked like--well, confusion, and if she saw anything  _ else _ in his face when she'd looked…

The simplest thing in the world is not to notice.

Stomach sour and feeling dirty under her skin, she bites her kiss-bruised lips almost hard enough to draw blood.  She takes an angry, selfish pleasure in what they'd just done, knows she'll never be touched or kissed like that again, tries not to imagine Rio dressing, Rio taking his money, Rio leaving--the ache in her chest will dull, and she'll have her kids again, and if giving Dean what he wants gets her what she wants and no one gets hurt anymore, it's worth it, right?

A half-formed thought that he's probably already gone has started when the bathroom door bangs open and she shoots to her feet, arms still tight around herself as if she'll shatter into a thousand pieces if she lets go.  With a numb sort of dread, she watches Rio stalk closer, and, oh,  _ there's _ the anger--the anger should be distracting enough that she doesn't notice he's still naked, but instead she finds herself reminding herself to keep her eyes on his face.  She flinches when he slams the door behind him. For a long moment, the only noise is the shower, and she can see his jaw working.

“So, what the fuck was that?” he demands, voice steely and cold.

To her credit, she only pauses for a moment before, “The sex part, the part where I said I'm out, or the part where I asked you to leave?”

“Yeah.”

“I think you should go,” she says carefully, ashamed when she can't keep herself from glancing down.

“No.”  Her mouth falls open as he crosses his arms.  “No, I think I'm gonna need you to tell me where you get off using me to get your rocks off before you, what, go back to your piece of shit husband, your white-picket-fence life because  _ that _ was going so well for you--”

“That's not fair,” she hisses. 

“What's not fair is treating me like you picked me up off a corner,” he counters, taking a step closer.

“No one working a corner makes that kind of money in one go,” she says, tone lofty and dismissive, feeling like she’s drowning and reaching for the nearest object.

It is, apparently, the exact wrong thing to say because his face clouds further and his voice has lowered to a dangerous growl when he asks, “Do you think this is funny?  Is this a game to you? You think you can just--”

“He took my  _ kids _ , Rio,” she interrupts, and, God, she doesn't even recognize the wrecked sound that's coming out of her, too raw and coming from somewhere too deep.  “I--I have to, okay? I told him it was over, I need it to be over, I don't…” She can't finish that thought and swallows and furiously digs the heels of her hands into her eyes.  Her throat aches and she can't meet his gaze, but she can feel him staring at her, and she turns her back to him to turn off the shower. 

In the jarring silence, she hears him, still tight with anger, “You don't what, Elizabeth?”

Squeezing her eyes shut, she responds, “I don't know who I am if I'm not their mom--” she stops and finally looks at him.  His face is closed off, but some of the fury has cooled. “I did all this for them,” she says lamely. “Dean, he--”

He cuts her off with a blunt, “He's manipulating you.”

“Don't you think I know that?” she laughs without humor.  “He tried to kill you--he--it was  _ never _ about the kids for him,” she says it like it's a new revelation.  “It was always about me and you, and it was  _ always _ about my family for me.  I know _ exactly _ what he's doing,” she scoffs bitterly, “But none of the lying or the feds or the  _ guns shoved in my face _ means anything if I don't have them.”  After a breath, she continues, softer, “He'd try again, you know, and he can't be unlucky every time.  He'll get so--so worked up, he'll do something stupid and next time it won't be my money, it'll be my kids, or it'll be--”

She stops herself before she says  _ you _ and she doesn’t say  _ and it would be my fault _ and all the words she doesn’t say taste like bile on her tongue.

The silence stretches and, after catching her eyes tracking down his chest  _ again,  _ she hears herself blurt, “God, could you not have put on pants first?”

His surprised little huff is just barely audible and it makes something constrict painfully in her chest.  She makes herself hold his gaze for a beat, feeling exposed and unable to speak just yet. Her fingers dig into her own arms until they start to ache and she has to force her hands to relax.  When it becomes apparent he’s not gonna say anything and he’s just gonna keep  _ staring at her _ , face now not angry at all, not displaying anything, infuriatingly blank, her eyes flicker over his shoulder--she can see half her reflection behind him, a ghost of herself, face pale with high spots of color and eyes too wide--before settling back on his.

“What I did--” she swallows, willing her voice to be less thin, less unsteady.  “What I did was mean and ugly and stupid and I’m sorry.” The words have claws and they grip her throat on their way out, but something in her loosens when his shoulders lower  _ just so _ .  He takes a step forward, and another, and she hears herself ask, “What are you--”

“Tell me,” he says quietly, not quite an order but somehow with authority.  She doesn’t respond immediately, whole world too swallowed up by his proximity--his still  _ very _ naked proximity, which bears repeating because she’s only human and not as unaffected as she pretended--and instead she watches his hand lift in what’s now an achingly familiar gesture, edge of his finger barely touching her face as he brushes her hair back.  “You want me to go?”

She nods, once, mouth dry and tongue feeling thick and stupid.

“Nah,” he shakes his head, one corner of his mouth lifting, “I’m gonna need to hear you say it.”

Her mouth opens, but she can’t make herself say it.  Maybe it’s because he so clearly knows how full of shit she’d be if she did, or maybe it’s because she only had enough in her for  _ one _ halfway decent lie--especially today, especially after--

“Tell me you want me to go, Elizabeth,” and  _ that’s _ an order, no matter how softly he says it.

“I  _ can’t _ .”  It feels like the admission is wrenched out of her, and she feels her face burn and she wants to look away but she can’t do that, either.

His fingers tip her chin up.  “Tell me you don’t want this.”

Her mouth moves around the words  _ I can’t _ again but she isn’t sure she actually speaks.  She can’t hear past the blood rushing past her ears anyway.

His thumb strokes up her jaw ask he asks, “Do you trust me?”

She’s bobbing her head even as she says, “No.”

“That’s good,” he smiles--small and not wholly unburdened but still a  _ smile _ .  She thinks against all reason that he’s going to kiss her when he leans closer, but then he moves past her and she hears the shower start.  He’s close and his voice is rumbly-warm when he half-jokes, “I could just take care of him for you, finish the job.”

The words have the uncomfortable effect of bringing to mind hysterical laughter, embarrassment, relief, the ache of sitting stiffly in a hospital waiting room for hours, and the sudden plummeting of her stomach when she found out Dean was still alive.  She watches him pass a hand under the stream of water, and there’s something welling up inside her that she can’t quite name--maybe it’s a mix of things too jumbled to separate. 

“Why are you doing this?” she asks, and it almost isn’t real under the din of flowing water.

For a moment, it’s like his face cracks open and she thinks she sees an echo of some of the vulnerability she’d felt before--but then he ducks his head and his lips are on hers, just the barest touch, and he whispers, “Haven’t come up with a good enough reason not to.”

Like a physical blow, it knocks the breath out of her, and she doesn’t think before pushing up to press her forehead to his temple because she can’t find the words for the clamor in her chest.  “You make it sound so simple,” she finally manages.

“It’s pretty simple.”

It’s not, and she shouldn’t convince herself otherwise, and she  _ knows _ this is a bad idea, that this complicates things so much more than a clean break would have.  She should tell him it’s not, should push him away even if she can’t bring herself to say she  _ wants _ him to leave.  Her hands have a mind of their own, though, and her fingers spread out over his chest, and she drops her head onto his shoulder and breathes and breathes and breathes.  Under the faint scent of his soap or cologne or aftershave or  _ whatever _ it is, he smells like clean sweat, and she never knew she  _ liked _ that until now but it makes something in her belly squirm.  She feels his hands slide down her back, not quite a hug but something, big and hot through the silk of her robe.

“C’mon, you gotta take a shower, your kids’ll be home soon,” he murmurs, and when she lifts her head she can see the edge of a sardonic smirk on his lips.

“Right.”  As he steps back, she unties her robe and, with only a pause and with her eyes on his, lets it fall to the floor.  “Are you getting in?” she asks, one hand on the shower door as she looks back at him.

“That’s the idea,” he responds, eyes dropping and raising slowly.

She steps under the spray and hears the door slide shut next to her, but he doesn’t touch her, and she tips her head back, facing into the water.  If not for the fact that she can feel him behind her, she could almost convince herself that she’s alone in there. But then she turns around and the shower seems so much smaller with him in it--and she feels so much smaller, and he looks so much taller, and there are drops of water clinging to his eyelashes.  It’s such a small thing, but something about that makes this so much more  _ real _ , and she realizes how futile it really was to try to end it when he’s looking down at her, dark eyes warm with something too gentle to be lust or solely lust, and when she feels like everything she can’t give a name to is written all over her face.  She lifts her hands to his face and watches his eyes fall shut before she passes her thumbs over his eyelids.

The thing is, Beth’s never kissed anyone in the rain--or the shower--and when she would watch movies like  _ The Notebook _ she always wondered what the appeal was.  It’s not that she never understood, intellectually, the big moments.  Making out in the rain just seemed… soggy.

She kinda gets it now.

Kissing feels like drowning--wet gasps are swallowed up by the sound around them, there’s water streaming down her face and on her lips and under her fingers, and it’s not quite real.  Her bedroom, big and bright, with all that space between them and then around them and the whole world outside was  _ real _ , but the shower stall is tiny, dim, and the entire world has pared down to just  _ them, _ just his mouth and his hands and his skin under her palms.  She stumbles forward when he steps back, suddenly grateful for the tile under her feet in a way she’s never been before because coordination and gravity don’t feel like they’re her friends right now.  It’s not clear who moves first, if she twists and he follows or vice versa, but then her back is pressed against cold tile--

And the yelp she lets out echoes around her as she arches away from the wall.

His laugh echoes, too, but his hands are warm enough to chase away the chill as they slip down her shoulder blades.  It’s not as bad when she’s expecting it, and she barely jolts when she leans back. With both hands over his ribs, fingers spread wide, she pulls him forward, parts her knees to allow his thigh to slot between hers, and she can feel him hard against her hip.  She thinks,  _ I always  _ knew _ he was gonna kill me,  _ as she strains upward to catch his lip between her teeth.  One of his hands comes up to her neck as he kisses her hard enough that her head knocks back into the wall--it doesn’t hurt, and she breathes a laugh into his mouth.  He starts to pull back, but her fingers dig into his biceps and she lets out a noise that sounds desperate to her own ears.

When he breaks away again, his hand at the center of her chest keeps her back against the tile, and she holds her breath as it slides lower and his thigh slides higher and shoots heat through her, makes her hips jerk reflexively.  His palm presses flat low on her belly and his eyes lock on hers. 

“You want this.”

It’s not a question, but she still answers with a voice almost hoarse with want, “I want this--I want  _ you _ .”

She watches his tongue pass over his lower lip and unconsciously mirrors him.  His fingertips slip between her legs, touches teasing and feather-light but enough to draw a whine out of her.  Barely-there brushes become more purposeful and her eyes fall shut and--

He stops.

“Look at me, Elizabeth,” he orders, thumb brushing the underside of her jaw.

Biting her lip, hard, she opens her eyes.  He smirks, but she doesn't have time to be affronted by  it before he’s touching her again, and she’s slick and aching and oversensitive and can’t look away from his face.  A finger presses inside of her, and all the pent-up breath in her lungs shakes out of her on a helpless moan. Her own hands don’t seem to know where they want to settle, flitting from his chest to his shoulders to his arms, his neck, his belly, but he bats them away when they try to sneak lower with a gruff  _ not yet _ .  He does let her tug him into another rough kiss, hungry and open and bruising, and he swallows up her cry as he slips another finger into her.

His hand moves slow and sure and relentless and she rocks against the rhythm he sets, feverish with need.  The heel of his palm grinds against her and his fingers curl and she wants  _ more _ and her face burns with it, burns at the noises she’s making, pressure building--she wants, she wants, she  _ wants _ .  She doesn’t realize she’s speaking, choking on the words, until he pulls back, amusement all over his face.

“What do you want?” he asks lowly.  She rolls her eyes and shakes her head and  _ moans _ , and he presses in deeper and harder and hits the spot inside her that makes her vision go a little blurry before repeating, “What do you want, Elizabeth?”

“I want-- _ God _ , I hate you so much,” she nearly growls, glaring at his laugh, “I want to  _ come _ .”

The words make her flush, and she thinks she hears him snort, but his hand moves faster, rougher, so she can’t really complain.  Her breath hitches as she clings to his shoulders and stands up on her toes, trying to get leverage or  _ something _ , and he whispers, “Eyes on me,” and “Come on,” over and over as pleasure mounts until finally-- _ finally _ \--it hits its peak and she  _ sobs _ and his mouth crashes into hers again.

His strokes slow but don’t stop, and each one makes her quake until it becomes too much and she grabs his wrist and laughs giddily, “You have to--you have to stop, I can’t--”  A little whine escapes her when he pulls his fingers out of her, and she closes her eyes against a blinding wave of overstimulation when they drag over her clit before his hand moves to settle on her hip.

_ My water bill is gonna be astronomical, _ she thinks with a quiet, amused huff.

“So,” she begins once she’s caught her breath, resting more fully against the wall at her back, “Was that you forgiving me or you punishing me for…”

“Pulling a  _ Moulin Rouge! _ ?” he finishes, smiling at her surprised gape.  “I watch movies,” he shrugs.

“Does that make you Satine?” she asks before she can think it through.  He shakes his head, but she can see the edge of the smile he’s trying to hide.  It’s a little too familiar and a little too fond, after what she’d tried to do and the conversation they’d had, but she lets it rest for another moment before pushing him back against the wall and grinning at his hiss.  “Cold?” she asks innocently.

“Funny.”

Humming, she licks her way past his lips and presses against him, thighs to hips to chest, gratified when he gasps.  She sucks his lower lip into her mouth, drags her teeth over it, and his groan shakes through her. She sounds more confident than she feels when she asks, “What do  _ you _ want, Rio?”  He doesn’t answer but his eyes drop to her mouth and linger there for a moment, and she worries her lip between her teeth before pulling back enough to watch a drop of water trail down one side of his neck and catching it with her tongue and sinking to her knees in front of him.

She takes his erection in one hand and, eyes up on his, nips at the ridge of his hip.  He brushes her wet hair back, and she can’t quite decipher the face he’s making.

“Just so you know,” she says evenly, sitting back on her knees and stroking him experimentally, watching his head drop back, “I haven’t done this in--in a  _ very _ long time.”  She’d definitely done it more recently than any  _ other _ sexual act before him, but it’s still been years.  “So, if it’s bad, I’m going to ask that you keep that to yourself.”

It’s hard, sometimes, not to compare him to Dean--she doesn’t want to, doesn’t think it’s fair to, but times like just now it’s hard to ignore how very different they are, how she wants to do this for  _ him _ but considered it as a chore with--

Swallowing, she focuses instead on the weight of him on her tongue and in her hand, on the taste of salt, on what makes his breath catch and hips jerk and fingers flex.  It doesn’t take long for her knees to start to hurt, but she can hear with every pull of her mouth the quiet way he moans like he’s trying to stifle it, and she thinks a little privately that  _ maybe  _ it’s worth the growing ache in her jaw.  She follows her lips with her fist, gags a little when she gets too ambitious, hums when his fingers bury in her hair--hums  _ again _ when it makes him curse.  When she chances a look up at him, she finds his eyes on her.  She pulls off and flexes her jaw to work out the kinks before dragging her tongue up the underside of his cock, feeling hot and prickly under his scrutiny but not missing the breathless noise he makes.

He doesn’t move, really, except a few little hitches, can tell he’s holding himself very still by the tension in his stomach and thighs.  His fingers in her hair tighten and release, but he doesn’t try to drag her forward--she thinks with a foreign sort of longing of what it might be like if he didn’t hold himself back, but then she thinks that that’s  _ definitely _ too ambitious.  Her name on his lips sounds like a plea and she can  _ feel _ how close he is under her fingers, can hear it in his voice.  

“I’m gonna--” he croaks, voice hoarse and eyes dark, as he tugs at her hair.  It’s kind of sweet, even though the bar is so low it’s at basic courtesy, and she lets out a sharp breath through her nose and bobs her head and tries not to imagine what she looks like as his moans grow ragged and his grip on her hair goes painful--then he lets out a sound she can’t name and she  _ doesn’t _ choke when he floods her mouth.

She does, however, pull off as soon as his hand relaxes and spit onto the floor--which is honestly an unexpected bonus of doing this in the shower--her own hand still working until he grabs her arms and hauls her up.  It’s something of a surprise when he pulls her into a messy, open-mouthed kiss that makes her chest clench, and she wraps her arms around his neck and leans into him, breaks the kiss to drop her forehead to the space where his shoulder meets his neck.  His own arms wind around her, and she wonders if this is considered hugging or cuddling.

“I hate to say it,” she mumbles, just loud enough to be heard over the shower that feels like it’s going cold--and she’s amazed the hot water lasted this long--and without lifting her head, “But you really should leave soon.”

“Yeah,” he replies as one hand comes up to the nape of her neck.

With some regret, she pulls away and turns to shut the water off, and once they’re out of the shower and everything feels real again, she hands him a towel.  It’s surreal, watching him dry off--the silence isn’t quite comfortable, but it’s not oppressive--and he leans back against the door, watches her brush her teeth.  She isn’t sure where they go from here because it’s really not as simple as he seems to think, but she’s having a hard time convincing herself that that’s reason enough to stop.

At length, she rinses her toothbrush and sets it in its holder and turns to him.  “You never answered me,” she says.

“How’s that?” he asks, lips curling but eyes guarded.

“Forgiveness or punishment?” she responds, gesturing behind her.

For a moment, he looks serious before his face cracks open into a grin and his shoulders lift.  “Maybe it was both,” he says. She breathes a chuckle as he opens the door and continues, “I’m gonna get dressed--I hear your kids are coming home.”

He starts to close the door behind him as he leaves when she says, “Wait.”  When he turns, hand still on the doorknob, she smiles tentatively, “I’ll call you?”

“Yeah,” he drawls, giving her a once-over, “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> So this is based off of a message I received from my excellent friend and wonderful [beta](https://lunafeather.tumblr.com) that said, and I quote, "I desperately need a fic where Rio does not take this lying down (ha) and follows Beth into her bathroom and confronts her and they fight and she's finally honest about everything and Rio convinces her they'll get her kids back, lie to her husband but meet in private and then they have shower sex."
> 
> To which my natural response was, "Are you telling me this as a friend or as a fic writer?" As it turns out, it's a distinction without a difference.
> 
> On top of inspiring the _entire_ fic by virtue of yanno sending me the prompt, she also is the reason Rio was naked, and consequently she inspired my favorite line in this whole fic.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, if you'd like to talk to me I can be found at my blog [here](https://johnisntevendead.tumblr.com), stay excellent and hopefully none of us die tonight when the episode airs! Title is from _& burn_ by Billie Eilish and Vince Staples and that song gets stuck in my head way more often than I should admit.


End file.
